


A Step Behind

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Post-Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6252505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man who had been the Winter Soldier left only half a step between himself and Captain America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Step Behind

The man who had been the Winter Soldier left only half a step between himself and Captain America, hovering behind Steve’s left shoulder without ever stubbing his toes against the Captain’s heel.

The Avengers didn’t like it. “Close enough to kill you in at least fifty-six different ways,” Natasha complained, forehead wrinkled as if she were trying to find the fifty-seventh. “It’s like you’ve got a mass-murdering  _ shadow. _ ” Tony shone a flashlight at said shadow, but was smart enough not to come within reach of the metal arm. Fury had ground out that he still wasn’t sure which of them he wanted to kill for all this, but if the Winter Soldier stabbed Captain America while they were strolling through the park at least they’d narrow his options and prove that the Soldier wasn’t Sgt. Bucky Barnes.

The man hidden behind Steve  _ wasn’t  _ Bucky. Bucky had never stood behind Steve. They were always shoulder to shoulder, unless Steve’s mouth got ahead of them both and Bucky moved to stand between his friend and the rest of the world. It had been true even when they’d escaped from Zola and the Red Skull and Bucky had been electrified and drugged and limping from a painful incision below his knee. He had to keep up with Steve, then, he’d argued, because staring at Captain America’s back would make him think he had just dreamed Steve Rogers, after all.

Steve had tried to walk beside this man who was not yet Bucky, or to follow him, to be sure he was real, that he would stay. But the soldier flinched at footsteps, dropped into a crouch when Steve came up behind him, and eventually Steve left him to stand where he would. He’d forgotten what it was like not to be alone, and the solid mass of the man behind him eased an ache Steve didn’t know he’d carried. At night, he slept on the floor beside Steve’s bed, invisible from the door, but Steve could hear him breathing, could feel him displace air and take up space in the world. He wasn’t Bucky, and he wasn’t at Steve’s side, but he was  _ real _ and Captain America wasn’t alone.

Then Dr. Evil attacked New York, with robots, and Captain America took out five before hitting the pavement under his own shield and a particularly effective laser cannon. He wondered, as the world blacked around the edges, if his soldier had been behind him to cushion the fall.

When he regained consciousness, he was laying below a shadow flinging his shield from a human arm, shooting lasers of his own from the metal one. Standing, fists raised, between Steve and the rest of the world.


End file.
